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DHS Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with members of the U.S. Coast Guard.
After intense backlash, the agency issued a new general order clarifying its position on hate symbols.
The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday night attempted to contain a growing storm of public concern over extremism within its ranks, issuing a new order that explicitly bans hate symbols, including swastikas, nooses, and Confederate battle flags, across all service workplaces, facilities, and assets.
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The move marked a sharp and sudden reversal. Hours earlier, The Washington Post had reported on internal policy change language suggesting the Coast Guard was preparing to treat such symbols as merely “potentially divisive,” no longer warranting automatic disciplinary review. That approach raised alarm among civil rights advocates and service members who saw the shift as a dangerous accommodation of extremist imagery long used to target people of color, Jewish Americans, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other vulnerable groups.
Related: New U.S. Coast Guard policy OK with some swastikas & nooses, but not transgender service members
But by late Thursday evening, the Coast Guard was publicly backtracking. Lt. Cmdr. Steve Roth, the service’s chief of media relations, sent The Advocate a press statement and a signed general order from Acting Commandant Adm. Kevin E. Lunday declaring that the Coast Guard was “doubling down” on its prohibition of hate symbols and issuing a formal, punitive mandate intended to “combat misinformation.”
The two-page order leaves little ambiguity. It states that the Coast Guard “does not tolerate” divisive or hate symbols and that their display undermines unit cohesion, morale, command climate, and mission effectiveness. It applies to all personnel across the service and lists nooses, swastikas, and symbols adopted by hate-based groups as explicitly prohibited. It also reaffirms the longstanding ban on the Confederate battle flag, including on vehicles, clothing, and any other visible display in Coast Guard spaces.
More consequentially, the directive elevates these rules to a punitive general order enforceable under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Violations can now carry criminal penalties. Commanders are instructed to order the immediate removal of prohibited symbols and consult legal officers when necessary. They must also alert the chain of command and the Anti-Harassment Program Office within 48 hours if a display is likely to draw media or congressional scrutiny.
The Coast Guard insisted Thursday that the new order does not represent a policy update but rather a clarifying restatement. Yet the timing of the directive, its expanded specificity, and the force of its legal framing suggest that leaders were reacting to a political and institutional crisis of their own making.
Related: Pete Hegseth mandates that all military service members watch his fratty Virginia speech to generals
The episode arrives at a moment when federal agencies, both military and civilian, are redefining the boundaries of acceptable conduct under President Donald Trump’s second administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has launched a broad overhaul of harassment rules across the Defense Department, arguing that traditional standards have become “overly broad” and hinder military readiness.
Within that landscape, the Coast Guard’s initial willingness to recast nooses and swastikas as context-dependent symbols, while simultaneously enforcing a categorical ban on transgender service members and Pride flag displays, struck many observers as emblematic of a government recalibrating its tolerance in ways that disproportionately harm marginalized communities.
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